


Adventures of Batgirls Two and Three

by Finale



Series: Answer 'Verse [2]
Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-12 19:51:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1197312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Finale/pseuds/Finale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Adventures of Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain in the Answer 'Verse. Starting up? How exactly they found out about Jason's relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. How Stephanie and Cass Found Out (Or the One Where Batgirls Tie Jason Up)

How Stephanie and Cass Found Out (Or the One Where Batgirls Tie Jason Up)

Darting over the Gotham rooftops towards the docks Stephanie giggles, earning her a curious look from her companion. Cass had only come back to Gotham for the week, Bruce more or less demanding she come home for at least a little bit. No matter how much he claims to work ‘alone’ he got clingy over all of them. Even her at this point (though she suspects that it started much earlier following her ‘death’). 

“Sorry, it’s just nice to actually patrol with you,” she admits, smiling at Cass. She’d cut short a trip to Metropolis to see Kara. Thankfully her girlfriend had understood and damn, wasn’t that still a weird thought? She had a girlfriend.

“Couldn’t get away from Hong Kong,” says Cass, nimbly leaping over the gap between two buildings. “Drug smugglers are from there though.”

“International drug dealers; always fun,” sighs Steph. “And let me guess, opiates?” As stereotypical as it may be, she adds silently. Steph also doesn’t add that Cass hadn’t been so much busy in Hong Kong as trying to come to terms with what Deathstroke had done to Cass. If she ever gets her hands on that asshole...

“Yes.”

“Double fun.”

They’re quickly come up on the docks, both growing quieter. It isn’t hard to slip into the main room of the dock, both staying in the shadows. Cass manages to get closer to the dealers than Steph. It’s easier for her to sneak silently on rafters; it also helps that there’s no eggplant purple to hers to make it stick out. The drug dealers are meeting; Steph can’t really hear what they’re saying but from the look on Cass’s face it’s probably something important. Maybe shipment times? Or how much everything is?

Just as Cass signals to her to move as the sound of a skylight breaking and gun shots start. Steph presses back into the shadows, looking around for the shooter. As she sees the all-too familiar sight of Red Hood dropping out through the skylight she has to bite back a sigh. Really Jason? Really? Can she not have one case not be interrupted by the Batboys?

And any way, what the hell is he doing in her patrol area? He avoids her like the plague. 

******************************************

Jason grins as he comes down through the skylight, guns pointed at the drug dealers below. He’s in Gotham to look into rumors about Joker planning something but he’s still in Arkham. These drug smugglers were guys he’d been keeping an eye on for weeks now and he may as well do Batgirl the favor of dealing with them. Yeah, it was dragging him into a part of Gotham he would normally avoid, the section of docks patrolled by Batgirl, but she’s in Metropolis. He’s just doing his duty as a big brother helping to keep an eye on things. He ignores the part of him that points out that he never interacts with Batgirl; she’s too much an echo of what happened to him. Fucking Black Mask...

He keeps his shots non-lethal, not in the mood to deal with Donna or Kyle’s bitching if he does kill someone. Hell, he doesn’t feel like dealing with Batgirl if she finds out he’s killing in her territory (and that feels weird to think still). She probably would hunt him down. He may have to deal with Supergirl or something like that. According to rumor Batgirl has a nasty right hook and a thing for hitting Robins in the face with bricks. 

Okay, that was only Replacement but still. No bricks to his face would be nice though. 

Jason makes short work of the dealers, knocking out most of them and shooting out the knees of two who attempted to run away. As long as the cops actually responded to his message they shouldn’t bleed to death. He ties up everyone, knowing he has about ten minutes before the cops arrive. It’s tempting to stick around and see who they send out to respond to his message; after all, the GCPD really doesn’t like him and it’s always entertaining to see who tries to nab him this week. 

He doesn’t though and heads back up toward the rafters, escape route in mind. Jason knows that he should look around and make sure that the escape route is actually, you know, an escape route, but who’s going to be around? Batgirl’s on vacation, Batman 2.0 and Demon Spawn are fighting Two Face over in the Diamond District and Red Robin was with the Titans. B wasn’t even in Gotham at the moment. 

(A head lock and a brick to the head later he can acknowledge that he still should have checked anyway. What the hell where Batgirl and Black Bat doing in Gotham anyway?)

*******************************

“So, why exactly is the Red Hood in my part of Gotham,” asks Steph staring down at the now unconscious vigilante. 

“Probably thinks your in Metropolis. Likely decided to cover for you,” says Cass. She’s more or less poking Jason with her foot, staring down thoughtfully at him. “I think we should ask.”

“Uh, I don’t think he’s going to want to do that Black Bat,” replies Steph. “We did just knock him out and he’ll just run before answering any questions.” She tilts her head in thought. “Well, if we tie him up somewhere so that he can’t run we could get answers out of him. I’m curious as to why he’s even in Gotham. No ones seen him in weeks.”

“Then lets do that. We can use my apartment.”

“When did you...”

“I am a Bat.”

“Of course.”

********************

Jason feels confused as he regains consciousness. He’s tied to a sturdy wooden chair with zip ties, one holding his wrists together behind his back and two more holding his legs to the chair’s own. He’s been disarmed, someone taking his jacket altogether; heh, nothing like paranoia to keep someone captive. There were small blades sewed into the cuffs of the jacket for cutting zip ties. Half the time he cuts his wrists as well, but he can normally cut the ties and stop the bleeding fast enough for it to be a non-issue. 

He peers out through dark eyelashes in an effort to see where he is. Jason doesn’t bother to keep them lowered when he realizes that he’s dealing with Batgirl and Black Bat. Black Bat will have been able to notice any sides of wakefulness that he’d’ve unintentionally made. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be in Metropolis,” he asks, nodding towards Batgirl. “And aren’t you supposed to be in Hong Kong? And where am I?”

“Other things came up,” shrugs Batgirl. “And you’re in a safe house. I think the better question is what are you doing in Gotham? No one has seen you in ages and now you pop up in my patrol territory? When you generally avoid me?” 

“I don’t avoid you,” Jason claims. He needs to guide them away from wanting to know where he’s been. He, Kyle and Donna still aren’t ready to let their relationship get out to the superhero population at large. It was bad enough Jordan knew and he remains surprised the man hasn’t blabbed yet. Then again, no one has seen him in a while...

“Bullshit. I’ve literally seen you change direction to avoid running into me before. Oracle has recordings of you making sure to be scarce when I’m vaguely near where you may be,” points out Batgirl. 

Jason scowls at the blond Bat. She was too much a reminder of what happened to him. Hell, he’s stilling calling bullshit over her supposed ‘survival’. It was way too suspicious. Something else had to have happened there. Bruce never would have missed that Batgirl (then Spoiler/Robin) was alive. Especially since he had been sitting next to her when she flatlined from what rumor said, and in this case he was incline to believe rumor. What he thinks happened is that she really did flatline, and, much like he came back to life out of the blue so did she, probably startling the hell out of Dr. Thompkins and being what triggered her going to Africa. 

“She reminds you have what happened to you,” says Black Bat, her stare assessing him. It was kinda unnerving. It sort of felt like being stared down by Talia which made no sense; maybe it was a ninja trained woman thing?

Jason switches his scowl over to her, glaring from behind his domino. He doesn’t know where his hood went; when they hit him over the head they probably broke it. He’s happy he has spares. 

“Wait, seriously,” says Batgirl, giving him an incredulous look. “Is that seriously why you’ve been avoiding me? Because we both ‘died’?”

“Yes,” he growls out, not happy to have to admit it. Jason suspects if he doesn’t he’s never getting out of the chair. “You’re too much of a reminder of what happened to me and...” what B didn’t do gets left off. Too much of this is conversation ending in silent words and thoughts but there’s not much he can do about that. 

************************

Steph just stares at him, not sure how to deal with Hood and his, well, Hoodness. In a lot of ways she was fed up with hearing about his issues. He almost broke Gotham last year in an apparent decline to complete insanity (and seriously, what happened to him following that Crisis? No one seemed to know but he had mysteriously gotten better). Because seriously, she was too much of a reminder about what happened to him? And that’s why he doesn’t want to deal with her? Ever?

Since Cass isn’t calling bullshit Steph suspects that Hood is telling the truth and it makes her both sad and angry. Sad because he really can’t let go of what happened to him and is sort of combining Black Mask’s attempt to kill her to what Joker did to him. Neither of them had gone out nicely, her tortured and him blown up up and betrayed. She’s angry though that he won’t let it go, that he refuses to understand why B can’t break his vow to not kill.

“You know that B almost killed Joker after you died?” Steph asks quietly, her voice straining in her effort to not let all her emotions seep out. “That Nightwing beat the Joker so badly that for a while they actually thought he was dead? Do you understand how badly it would have destroyed either of them had they done it?” She stares straight at the lenses of his makes, wishing for either Kara’s x-ray vision to see his eyes or Cass’s ability to read body language. 

“Grow the fuck up Jason.” Okay, she wasn’t exactly in control of her temper. 

By the incredulous expression on his face that isn’t what he was expecting her to say. She is, after all, the ‘nice’ Bat and that hadn’t really been that nice. 

“Grow the fuck...the Joker fucking murdered me and all Batman did throw him back in Arkham! I come back to Gotham and nothing’s changed. The Joker is still running around murdering people and...and...” he trails off, expression becoming a sort of sad broken thing that makes Steph want to hug him. “He forgot me.” It was said so softly that Steph suspects they aren’t supposed to hear him. “Wait,” he says frowning, something obviously occurring to him and him desperately trying to get away from the topic at hand, “how do you know my name?”

She opens her mouth to reply but Cass distracts her. She is playing with a cellphone that they’d found on Hood. Cass makes a quiet sound of satisfaction; she probably had managed to unlock it or had found something interesting. 

“I used to date Red Robin, Oracle’s my mentor and I’ve been associated with everyone for a while. I know who everyone is. Besides, it’s pretty obvious who Red Hood is the second you know you used to be Robin.”

“Point.”

“Why are a Green Lantern and Troia in your cellphone?” Cass asks abruptly.

Steph can tell from the look of ‘oh fuck’ that crosses Hood’s face that this is going to be good. And hopefully it ties back to the earlier question of where he keeps disappearing to. 

************************

Cass feels more than a little surprise to find Green Lantern and Troia as contacts in Jason’s phone. Arsenal and Starfire make sense since they’re his teammates but the other two don’t. She doesn’t have to be Tim to put it together though. Not the with way Jason had suddenly gotten so stiff and not with the sudden play of emotions crossing his face. If he hadn’t already been so emotionally off balance with the earlier discussion it probably wouldn’t have happened.

“You’re involved with them,” she says, not giving him time to respond with a haphazard lie. “That’s why you keep disappearing.”

“No I’m not,” he quickly denies. “We’ve been keeping in touch since our whole Multiverse adventure. We bonded then.”

“You know a lot of the hero community thinks your involved with Troia anyway, right?” asks Steph. “Especially since she quiet the Titans to join your team.”

“She could have quiet the Titans to join my team because she’s friends with all of us,” says Jason his voice calmer and more balanced. Even his body language had managed to go back to a sort of neutral state. “It doesn’t mean we’re sleeping together.”

“The way you reacted implies that they’re more of a reason they’re in your phone then just friendship. You wouldn’t have reacted so strongly if that was the case and I can tell you’re lying,” Cass points out. “You’re more deeply involved with both of them than that.”

“You can’t prove anything.”

“The way you worded that says otherwise,” snarks Steph. Her body language was becoming more balanced too, calming down after an emotionally straining conversation. 

“So what if I am involved with them?” he challenges them. “Afraid I’ll corrupt them?”

Its all a show though, Cass can tell from the bravado in his stance. She can also tell they only have minutes before he manages to break the zip tie on his wrists. They should have used two. He’s been straining against it the entire conversation and it’s finally giving in. 

“No. Hopefully they’ll keep you from having a repeat of the red head incident,” Cass replies. She sees it the second the tie snaps on his wrists and braces for what he does next. 

***********************************

Jason feels annoyance at how quickly Cass had managed to figure him out and his relationship just from Kyle and Donna being in his phone. He should have realized that they were going to be curious about the contents of it and them both being in his phone was kinda telling. Even though his wrists are now free he doesn’t make an aggressive move towards either girl. He knows that it’ll just end badly. They had missed one of his knives which he quickly slips out and cuts the zip ties trapping him to the chair legs. It wasn’t at an angle he could have reached while still tied but now he can. 

“I’m going to leave now. I’m going to head home and pretend that most of this conversation never happened. I’m not going to attack you, I don’t need to deal with our entire family.” He cuts Batgirl off as she opens her mouth to say something; probably her pointing out that she isn’t related to all of them. “You’re wearing a Bat on your chest, you’re family. Even Batwoman sort of counts. The only ones who really don’t are the Batman Inc. people who don’t live in Gotham.”

“We’re going to let you leave,” says Black Bat. 

As he heads for the window he doesn’t bother to say goodbye. He suspects they’ll hunt him down later to try and talk to them. Jason’s just grateful they decided to let go where he keeps disappearing to once they got distracted by the Donna/Kyle thing. 

“By the way Hood, tell Lantern and Troia we say hi,” says Batgirl as he slips out the window. 

He isn’t so far away that he misses what she says next, which he’s grateful for. He’s going to have to give Donna and Kyle a heads up so they can come up with a plan to deal with it.

“Hey Oracle, guess what I just found out?”


	2. Chatting about Death and Memories

Steph hasn't had this dream in a while, the dream of the unearthly blond woman smiling serenely down at her (and not like how Kara does it). She thinks it's actually a memory. The smile is almost maternal and too calm with a sense of darkness hiding behind curved lips and vivid violet eyes. Steph's head is resting on her lap, Steph's blue eyes staring straight into violet. 

“It is not your time yet young one,” the woman says, voice soothing and melodious. “You have been sent out too soon. I should not yet be seeing you for several more years.”

“Who...are...you,” huffs out Steph, words barely escaping her throat. Everything still hurts. After you die you shouldn't hurt, that's not fair!

“I am one who keeps and eye on you and all those of you,” the woman replies, a hint of mischief now dancing in her eyes. 

“Me and those of me?” asks Steph, a sense of haziness starting to overtake her. She feels like she's in a dream just moments before waking up. 

“It's not your time Stephanie,” repeats the woman. “No, not yet, not nearly yet.”

She presses a warm kiss to Steph's forehead, soothing in all sorts of unexpected ways. 

“Wake up.”

(Even though Steph keeps having the dream she never remembers when she wakes up)

**************************

“Have you ever had the feeling you should know something but you can't remember it?” Steph asks Kara. “Like, when you're trying to remember a word, it's on the very tip of your tongue but you just can't spit it out? I feel like that right now.”

Steph had woken up disgruntled, knowing she'd dreamt but not able to remember what exactly. Which isn't entirely normal for her since she can generally remember her dreams; hell, she can lucid dream which is awesome. You can do anything when you're sleeping. 

“Yes. Well, the tip of the tongue thing. I rarely have issues with my memory,” says Kara from where she's resting her head on Steph's stomach. She found it comfortable. “Mostly right after I landed on Earth. The stasis process was disorienting to wake up from. It didn't exactly help that Kal is an adult. I briefly thought he was his dad.”

“That is...” Steph trails off, not quite sure what to say. “Probably unpleasant?” she finishes weakly. 

“Very.”

Steph stares down at Kara as the Kryptonian starts to slide down her body with a mischievous look on her face. Steph's not surprised when the other blond starts licking at her clit, just very happy. She's even happier when Kara shift around so she can play too.

 

******************************

“Do you remember anything from when you were dead?” Steph asks Jason, surprising the hell out of him. He just stares at the blond Bat for a few seconds, trying to process what she'd said. “Yes, I really did just ask that.”

“Why?!? And no,” he says. Its more or less true. He doesn't remember anything from when he was dead but he sorta, vaguely remembers a warm hand against his cheek and a soothing voice telling him something in a language he didn't recognize before waking up in his coffin. 

“I feel like I should remember something,” Steph admits. “I feel like there's something I should remember. It's really starting to piss me off. It doesn't help that I think I keep dreaming about it but then can't remember my dream.”

“I remember a dark haired woman touching my cheek and saying something to me in a language I didn't recognize,” Jason says quietly. “Then I woke up in my grave and had to claw my way out. I don't remember anything from when I was actually dead.”

He knows he can trust Steph with things like this. In contrast to the other's she's actually been in his position. Even though Bruce claims in one of his files that Stephanie was never dead and that Dr. Thompkin's faked it he'd called bull shit quickly. That wasn't like her. Then again, it wasn't like the good doctor to let a girl die because she was trying to make a point to Bruce either, but still. And according to Steph she'd really died and he's more inclined to believe her over Bruce. 

Steph pulls her legs up against her chest, dropping her chin to rest on them. They'd been sitting on the rooftop just chatting for a while. Donna and Kyle were relaxing back at the apartment. Hell, he should be too but Steph and texted him (and when the hell had she gotten his number? He didn't give it to her.) to come talk. 

“How often do you think about the fact you died?” Jason asks, feeling it's something he should probably. 

“Not that often Hoodie,” she drawls. “I'm the cheerful, perky Bat remember? All hope and sunshine.” Her voice becomes steadily drier the more she spoke. 

Jason chokes back a laugh. Kyle'd made the quip at one point that they should figure out which hero would end up with what ring. They all agreed he'd end up with a Red or a Yellow (and it that would suck seeing as he thinks Sinestro noticed him getting Hal out of that room on Qward and that he'd probably just off him). Donna would end up with a Green one if she; it'd fit her lasso at least. Kori would totally end up with a Violet ring and Harper...Harper would probably end up with no ring cause he was a fucking idiot half the time. He'd probably lose it. Jason had thought if his siblings ended up with rings Cass would end up with an Indigo (minus the brainwashing, which, what the fuck?!?), Steph with either a Blue or Green, Tim with a Green, Dick with either Violet or Blue, and Damian was totally a Red. 

“Well, one of the Bats has to cheerful and it's not like Big Wing can do it while being the Bat,” Jason points out. “Come to think of it, I think you and he were the only really perky Robins. Damian and I are assholes and Tim's mini-Bruce.”

By the way she has to choke back a laugh that time he figures he's succeeded in making this a less depressing conversation. Jason's a bit surprised still by the conversation but he suspects that if he'd been on Earth for the past month and not trying to find Hal then they'd've had this chat sooner. He's wondering why none of the others have dropped in when he feels the sensation of someone staring at him. 

Damn Tim can be one creepy shit when he's not trying.

Replacement was hiding in the shadows of a building about a block away staring at them. Jason just flips him off and Steph glances back to see what he's looking out. He thinks it's completely appropriate that all she does is roll her eyes in annoyance at her ex's antics. 

“Yeah stalker mode,” she mutters. “At least it's not as weird as when he was tiny stalker Tim.”

Wait what?

“What?” Jason asks, staring at her. 

“You do know the story of how Red Robin became Robin, right?” she asks, give him a startled look. “Because he figured out who the first Robin was and then proceeded to stalk you guys for the next few years. He also frankly had the most ridiculous hero-worshipy crush ever. It was kinda cute. When you died he approached B because he was getting extremely violent and almost killed several criminals including Joker. Red Robin convinced B to make him Robin.” She tilts her head slightly. “Did Thalia never tell you how he got your old job? And did you never attempt to find out?”

Jason just shrugs. He really hadn't, he'd just been pissed that he'd been replaced. Then again, Steph had technically replaced him too; same with Damian. Both of them still bothered him less than Tim, but he's starting to suspect he should really let that go. Especially if he'd been Tim had been as hero-worshipy as Steph's comment implied. 

“I probably shouldn't have beat the shit out of him the first time I met him,” he acknowledges. 

“No, really?”

“Shush, no sarcasm.”

The way she laughs at him makes him smile. It's more fun to hang out with her then he realized.

“You want to go beat the shit out of some idiots trying to set up a human trafficking circle?”

“Lead the way Hoodie, lead the way.”

*********************************

“Jason's kinda fun to hang out with,” Steph says to Cass later that night over Skype. An uber secure version that Babs had created for them so they'd stop using their communicators like cellphones when they wanted to talk with Cass. 

“How so?”

“He's a better conversationalist than I realized. He also know's all the fun places to beat people up,” she says, slightly gleefully. It had been so satisfying kicking the shit out of those traffickers. Stay out of Gotham fuckers. 

“Beating people up is fun,” agrees Cass. “Why are you Skyping me at four in the morning?”

“Because I know you're up and most likely not chasing down bad guys right now,” Steph points out. “It's sort of daytime where you are.”

“Barely.”

“You don't even start patrol until after nine.”

“Still.”

“Either way I finally managed to chat with him about something that's been bothering me for a while,” Stap says. “I also found out he didn't know the how or why Tim replaced him which sorta weirds me out. Like, why didn't he check? Damn, I forgot to ask him why he's been missing for over a month,” Steph realizes.

“Didn't want to know,” shrugs Cass. “More uncomfortable if you know the reasoning behind someone's actions when you go to attack them for something like that. And probably had to do with his team.”

“True.” Steph yawns, staring at her clock. Thankfully it's spring break so she doesn't need to be up until noon. “I'm going to go to sleep. Talk to you tomorrow,” she says hopefully, staring at her best friend. 

“I'll Skype you tomorrow,” promises Cass. “Good night.” 

“Night Cass. Have fun beating up bad guys.”

“I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, the dream Steph has? Actually going to be very important later on so don't forget it! 
> 
> I do realize Jason probably did already know about the why and how of Tim's taking on the role of Robin but I decided doesn't matter, it's my story.
> 
> Note by the way, that Tim will actually be fully in the next chapter being, well, Tim.

**Author's Note:**

> As a note on my head canon about Stephanie's death; I really do think she died. The retcon for Stephanie's survival always struck me as really weak and I don't like it. I feel like the faking of her death thing doesn't make sense since Bruce should have been able to notice right away that Stephanie isn't actually dead seeing as she flatlines in front of him and he would have been able to see her stop breathing. That's pretty hard to fake, especially since Stephanie never would have agreed to it. 
> 
> As far as my head canon is concerned she really did die and somehow came back to life much to the surprise of Dr. Thompkins. Her mysterious resurrection didn't deal with most of her injuries though, just made it so she was no longer in danger of dying (again). I don't think she was resurrected by someone like Nekron though to act as a double agent in life like a lot of heroes were but rather someone else. While Stephanie was still unconscious she was snuck out to Africa to heal. Since she was severely injured due to her torture she took a long time to heal entirely. From injuries of that level she would have had to do serious physical therapy.


End file.
